Interview:Tamesue provides critique of sports in Japan ①

Dai Tamasue is an opinion leader 

as a Japanese former top athletes.He was a 400m hurdler joined Olympic three times.He is very intelligent and clever.He is now 40-year old.

Here is his interview. I am sure you will learn a lot about Japanese sports culture.

Japan times interview :8 June 2018 edition, by the staff writer Hiroshi Ikezawa. 

Dai Tamasue,a former track star who made Japan`s olympic team for the 2000Sydney Games,the 2004 Athens Games and the 2008 Bejing Games,has experienced the highest levels of competition in Japan,the United States and elsewhere.

  Now active as a TV commentator,Tamasue ,who nabbed a pair of bronze medals in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2001 and 2005 IAAF world champonships,has also developed a business aimed at supporting current and former athletes in Japan.

The Japan times(J): Let`s start with the controversy surrounding the illegal tackle a Nihon Univ football player made on a Kwansei Gakuin Univ quaterback on May 6. The play is significant in that it was made with the intention of injuring the opposing player.

Tamasue(T):The bottom line is this play broke the so-called "gentlemen`s agreement" that prohibits things like this from happening.Avoiding dangerous play is very important,especially in contact sports.The player made the illegal play because he was ordered to do it.That is hardly understandable for people outside Japan.

 (J) The Nihon Univ coaches allegedly used their power and scare tactics in order to control the team.

(T)The problem is why that kind of method is used in Japan.It is hard to understand for  people who have experienced sports in other countries.Top-down structure has been significant in Japanese sports culture and coaches use it to control athletes.

  What surprised me when I joined an American track and field team(few years back),a teammate told one on our coaches "you`re fired". In their mind,it`s the athletes who hire the coaches and when the coaches fail to help the athletes improve,they will be let go.It was shocking to me.

  The relationship based on(coaching) contracts keeps power harassment from occurring.the athletes and coaches just part ways when they do not get satisfying outcomes.But in Japan,coaches don`t make much money and most of the athletes aren`t professional.These circumstances create a situation where coaches control athletes through power and scare tactics.This is another unique aspect of Japanese sports culture.

(J)There are multiple reports of coaching using violence,not only in the Nihon Univ case,but at other schools.

(T)I would not say it is common.It should be very rare.But when you see cases in which violence is used,the coaches had similar experience when they were athletes.They learn to use violence from their coaches and follow the way their coaches taught them.

  One of the reasons it happens is Japanese sports are not very open.Many athletes want to be involved in their sports even after they retire.Their choices.Their choices are to be coaches or join the association of the sport.

  In either case, they will be surrounded by former athletes or coaches of those sports.

So athletes don`t  want to defy ther seniors because it would affect their lives after retirement.When it continues for years,,their own rules and "common sense" which are far different from the ones effective in the outside world,are established.Under these circumstances,there is a chance power harassment occurs.

Today`s flower